With a news report appearing on the IAU Working Groups webpage, the newly approved IAU Inter-Commission B2-C1-C2 WG Data Driven Astronomy Education and Public Outreach (DAEPO) was officially launched. And Dr. Chenzhou Cui at National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) was elected as Head of this new WG.This inter-commission working group is hosted at the IAU Division B (Facilities, Technologies and Data Science) Commission B2 (Data and Documentation), and organized jointly with Commission C1 (Astronomy Education and Development), Commission C2 (Communicating Astronomy with the Public), Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD), Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO) and several other non IAU communities, for example International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) Education Interest Group, American Astronomical Society(AAS) Worldwide Telescope Advisory Board, International Planetarium Society, Zooniverse project. The WG consists of 16 founding members, including 9 members and 7 associate members.

The working group is initiated and led by Dr. Chenzhou Cui. Dr. Cui is an organizing committee member of IAU Commission B2, PI of Chinese Virtual Observatory (China-VO), executive member of IVOA, member of AAS Worldwide Telescope Advisory Board, and deputy director of Chinese Astronomical Society Public Outreach Committee. Other 3 WG members from China include Ms. Shanshan LI (NAOC), Dr. Cuilan Qiao (Central China Normal University) and Dr. Zhixin Peng (Nanjing University).

With the development of many mega-science astronomical projects, for example CTA, DESI, EUCLID, FAST, GAIA, JWST, LAMOST, LSST, SDSS, SKA, and large scale simulations, astronomy has become a Big Data science. Astronomical data is not only necessary resource for scientific research, but also very valuable resource for education and public outreach (EPO), especially in the era of Internet and Cloud Computing. Maximizing the values of astronomical data in education and public outreach is the mission of the WG. The working group has the major objectives as: Act as a forum to discuss the value of astronomy data in EPO, the advantages and benefits of data driven EPO, and the challenges facing to data driven EPO; Provide guidelines, curriculums, data resources, tools, and e-infrastructure for data driven EPO; and Provide best practices of data driven EPO.